Be selective about what information you make public.
Be cautious while posting online any information that can personally identify you, a family member, or friend on a public site like a blog, or online white pages,
or job hunt sites, or in any other place. Anyone on the Internet can see the information. Sensitive information includes real name, date
of birth, gender, town, e-mail address, school name, place of work, and personal photos. Fraudsters, cheats and online perverts can misuse
this information to your detriment

Pay attention to the risks associated with e-mails.
and think twice before you open attachments or click links in e-mail-even if you know the sender-as these can be used to transmit spam and viruses to your computer.
Never respond to e-mail asking you to provide personal information, especially your account number or password, even if it seems to be from a business you trust. Reputable businesses will not ask you this information in e-mail.
Never click on links provided in an email, unless you are sure of the sender and the purpose of email. Instead, use a search engine to find the site.
Don’t forward spam, whether it’s a cute ‘thought of the day’, ‘set of jokes’, ‘amazing photo’, ‘recipe tree’ or similar email, if you don’t personally know the sender. The email may be a scam designed to collect the email accounts – and relationships – of everyone you share it with.

Never, try to meet a person with whom you’ve interacted only online without taking somebody else along and such meeting must always be in a public place. Remember, people are not always who they say they are.
People often feel uncomfortable setting safety boundaries because they don’t want to offend someone; but good intentioned people will understand and encourage you to set safety requirements, and it is the crooks who want you to feel guilty about it.

Know the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service of any service you use. Create an environment of safety
for yourself by understanding how a website that you use, treats your privacy and information.
That fine print may tell you the company can own, resell, rent, or give your information to anyone they want. If it does that then find a more respectful site.

• The free games, free offers, and ‘great deals'. Just as in the physical world, if these types of offers sound too good to be true, they probably are. Not only will these collect and sell your personal information, these ‘deals’, and ‘free’ applications are usually riddled with spyware, viruses or other malicious software.

• Through survey’s, sweepstakes, quizzes, and the like. These marketing tools are designed for one purpose – to get as much information from you as they can, so they can sell that to interested parties. Even the most innocuous ‘survey’s learn far more than you imagine, and they may give you malicious software or download tracking cookies, so just skip these entirely.

Periodically review your internet contacts and online activities.
Internet housekeeping is important. Periodically review who you have as contacts, and who can see your online profiles periodically to
prune out everyone you no longer have a close interaction with. Review images and content you’ve posted online to see if collectively these tell more about you than what should be known.

Block people you don’t want to interact with.
You don’t have to accept invitations to be friends with people just because they ask. People can find it difficult to turn someone down – and creeps and crooks count on this very thing. If you don’t want to be friends, delete the request. If you are already connected with someone you would rather not be, block them from your social sites. You can also block their email account so that they can never contact you through email, and block their phone number from calling or sending text messages to your phone.
YOU get to choose who, how, and when you are contacted.

Note that if you become a victim of a cybe crime, it is not your fault.
If you fall victim to a scam, fraudster, abuser or criminal, don’t blame yourself. The only person guilty is the abuser or a criminal. You didn’t cheat, scam, lie, threaten, harm, steal, or abuse yourself in some other way, so don’t lay a burden of guilt.
Don’t let the abuser or the criminal shame you into silence. Speak out and get the help you need.

Don’t post personal information such as mobile numbers and personal email ids on social networking sites.

Be extremely cautious while posting photographs and control who can view them. Bear in mind that photos can be saved and altered – you don’t want to regret having posted a particular photo, at a later stage! Create restricted user groups who can view photos. Also, don’t post embarrassing pictures of others.

Use strong passwords and use different passwords for different accounts.
Social networking sites are very easily hacked into and information can be modified. So ensure that you don’t use weak passwords
with personal information such as your birthday or your dog’s name.
Your password should be one that is difficult to guess.

Don’t share your password with anyone or let anybody else handle your account. What is seen as trust or some harmless fun, can have severe consequences.

Don’t accept “friend requests” from people totally unknown to you and from those that you don’t want to interact with. If you are being bothered by someone already on your friend’s list, feel free to block them! You get to choose who you want to interact with; don’t be “nice” and put up with any inconvenience.

Ensure your computer has a good antivirus and anti spyware software. A lot of applications on social networking sites can be malicious, and if your computer is not well protected, it can result in a lot of issues.

Last, but not the least, trust your instinct. If you are being subjected to any form of cyber bullying or harassment, report it at once!

Remember that information that you post once on the internet cannot be erased. Use your common sense
and utmost caution when you publish anything.
A lot of cyber crime can be prevented simply by exercising caution.

If you notice any offensive , abusive or illegal online post/content,
Immediately take its screenshot. Also take a screenshot of the link/URL
Of the illegal content.

On social Media make friends with people whom you personally know.
Many times we accept friend requests from friends of friends. However,
Even your friends may not be knowing them and had accepted their friend request because it was a
friend of friend. Such unrecognizable friend may be cheats and perverts who may misuse your ‘friend’
privileges and access on Social Media to harm you in many ways.

Don’t click on links sent over Facebook Messenger or other messages services,
even if they are sent from your friend’s account, if they are unsolicited (i.e you have neither asked for it nor were you expecting it).
Note: even your friend’s account may have been hacked and used from hackers to spread malware to unsuspecting ‘friend’.

Don’t click on links sent over Facebook Messenger or other messages services,
even if they are sent from your friend’s account, if they are unsolicited (i.e you have neither asked for it nor were you expecting it).
Note: even your friend’s account may have been hacked and used from hackers to spread malware to unsuspecting ‘friend’.

Don’t share any OTP or other passwords, even with ‘friend’ on any pretext. Such ‘pretext’
are tricks used by hackers to deceive you through social engineering in sharing your passwords, which may have grave consequences,
such as loss of control over Social Media account, your email account ID, etc.

On social Media accounts keep your privacy settings to the most stringent levels.
Only share information about yourself on ‘Need to Know’ basis.

On Whats App and other messaging Apps, ensure that ‘media auto-download’ is deactivated,
esp. from senders who are not in your contact list. Such media (videos, photos, documents, etc.) may have malwares embedded in them.

Note: The online audience is much larger than we comprehend. Anything offensive or embarrassing,
has a higher chance of become viral And out of control. Apply caution while posting things other people.